The man now in charge of planning Canberra's city centre lives 40km away in Bungendore.
But this is not an issue, the City Renewal Authority's new chief executive Craig Gillman says.
To him, his place of residence reflects Canberra's role in providing a "city experience" for the entire region.
The former paramedic is charged with leading the city into a new decade amid major property, public transport and infrastructure projects, a housing crisis and population boom.
From a big country town
When Mr Gillman first moved to Canberra in 1999, it still had the feel of a country town.
In the two-and-a-half decades since, the population has grown by about 140,000 people and the ACT has gained several suburbs.
It now has light rail, a developed Kingston foreshore, a bustling Braddon, a new city precinct where once there was nothing, some major festivals and, after all this time, international flights.
In 2001, the ACT's top languages other than English used to be Italian, Croatian and Greek. By 2021 they were Mandarin, Nepali and Vietnamese.
There were 65,000 more residences, more mortgages and fewer high-density houses.
And in the years since, the demographic has shifted to be younger and more diverse, Mr Gillman says.
"People are interested in experience. They want to get out. There is an appetite for growth and development," he says.
City renewal
The City Renewal Authority was created in 2017 to revitalise areas alongside the light rail.
Its responsibility extends from the Northbourne corridor to City West, including Dickson, Braddon, Civic and the Acton Waterfront.
The area is facing unprecedented investment from the public and private sectors, Mr Gillman says.
"We've got to be very considered about how we exploit or take advantage of this unprecedented investment," he says.
Canberra's layout comes from the prize-winning design of American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin in the early 1900s, making it a reasonably rare planned city.
"The Griffin-Mahony legacy is one of the real strengths of the city, but you can't just let it happen haphazardly from that point on," Mr Gillman says.
"Canberra can't really grow. It's surrounded by national park, it's surrounded by a small border, so we've really got to think about that urban infill.
"If we think about cities all over the world, you can think of examples where it has not been done well."
City for rich and poor
Mr Gillman started his career as a paramedic in the city's inner west in the 1990s.
At the time, many residential centres for people with disabilities in the area had just closed.
"Lots of people who had been in a facility for most of their lives were put into halfway houses, unsupported," he says.
It taught him an important lesson in inclusion.
"Cities are not for gentrified, well-heeled people. They're for everybody: poor, rich ... that's a really important value for me," Mr Gillman says.
Looking to the future
Far from the "country town" of 1999, Canberra will look very different by 2030.
"At the end of the decade, it's going to be fundamentally different to how it is today," Mr Gillman says.
The capital will need more homes, services and entertainment for a growing population.
There will be more residents in the city and carparks will move underground to make way for art and culture developments.
The authority is now working alongside the government and developers on a range of major projects, the largest and most complex being stage 2 of light rail.
There's also a new Canberra Theatre and convention and entertainment precinct in the works, upgrades to Dickson shops, City Walk and City Hill, and the Acton Waterfront's new park, Ngamawari.
In other words, even more reason to make the drive from Bungendore.
